[petsc-dev] 'master' RESET after bad merge! - 'tisaac/thplex' was based on 'next'

[Matthew Knepley]

On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 2:16 PM, Jed Brown <jed at jedbrown.org> wrote:

> Matthew Knepley <knepley at gmail.com> writes:
> > This is truly a low point for your argument. You are not arguing against
> the
> > usefulness, nor that automation is better than doing it by hand, but
> that it
> > did not happen for a while and moral use of VC dictates that you do it
> > manually?
> > That is crazy.
>
> A human has to review branches before merging.  Full stop.  There is no
> other option until computers become so advanced that they put
> programmers out of business.
>
> When you review a branch, you see what commits are coming in.  If you
> don't review the branch, there are countless ways to merge things that
> you don't want.  The specific accident of merging 'next' into 'master'
> or 'maint' is not the worst and actually fairly easy to notice.
>
> And now we're back to my request: if you want the system to enforce
> policy, make a concrete proposal for the precise semantics.  Otherwise
> take heart that the mistake we're babbling on about cannot occur if we
> do our jobs of reviewing branches before merging them.
>

The concrete proposal has been made many times. Here it is again: Do not
let anyone merge next into master. Babbling about how easy errors are to
avoid is senseless, and completely blind to all the neurological research.
People make simple mistakes all the time in every endeavor. That is why
checklists are useful:


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312430000/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=1535523722&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0312421702&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=03HFEWSHC7FJJ080HS3F

That is why NASA has exhaustive lists of checks and counterchecks. And
that is why we should automate as many checks as possible. Reduction of the
cognitive load on the programmer is always good. Arguing that they should
have done something else profoundly misses the point.

   Matt


-- 
What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their
experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their
experiments lead.
-- Norbert Wiener
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